


No Better Version of Me

by sangha



Series: We Mend Ourselves [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Coming Out, Demiromantic Bucky Barnes, Depression, Internalized Arophobia, M/M, Pansexual Bucky Barnes, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 09:19:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4559211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sangha/pseuds/sangha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky loves going out to the dance halls and flirting and occasionally, when he finds a willing girl, ending up in an alley or his shitty apartment, her legs wrapped around his waist and drinking in every sound she makes.</p><p>Bucky knows he is supposed to be looking for a girl he could potentially marry. At least take a girl on a date. But every time he does, it feels like there is something gnawing at his insides. There is never anything wrong with whatever girl he takes on a date, but every time they look at him with hearts in their eyes, Bucky feels like running for the hills. He tells himself he is being silly, or that he’ll find a girl whose romantic advances will not repulse him, or that maybe he is just plain weird and he’ll have to get over himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Better Version of Me

**Author's Note:**

> This can be read separately from the first part, though the first part will provide some more details on how Steve has dealt with his sexuality, since this fic focuses almost exclusively on what's going on in Bucky's head.

Bucky loves going out to the dance halls and flirting and occasionally, when he finds a willing girl, ending up in an alley or his shitty apartment, her legs wrapped around his waist and drinking in every sound she makes.

Bucky knows he is supposed to be looking for a girl he could potentially marry. At least take a girl on a date. But every time he does, it feels like there is something gnawing at his insides. There is never anything wrong with whatever girl he takes on a date, but every time they look at him with hearts in their eyes, Bucky feels like running for the hills. He tells himself he is being silly, or that he’ll find a girl whose romantic advances will not repulse him, or that maybe he is just plain weird and he’ll have to get over himself.

He keeps going on dates, sometimes arranging a double date so he can take Steve with him, and tries to smile convincingly whenever the girl says something that makes nausea bubble in his stomach. He never goes on a second date with any of the girls.

“You’re a real heart-breaker, Barnes,” Steve says to him after Bucky tells him he’s going on a date with yet another girl tonight. “You know you got a reputation by now, right?” Steve sounds amused.

“Yeah, yeah.” Bucky huffs.

“What happened to Daisy, by the way? She was nice.”

She _was_ nice. And sweet and pretty and there was absolutely nothing wrong with her except that Bucky still felt that familiar churning in his stomach whenever she said or did anything to convey she had a crush on him. “Just wasn’t right for me, is all.” It’s vague, but he has no better way of explaining, not when he doesn’t even know why he feels the way he feels.

“Maybe tonight is your lucky night,” Steve says encouragingly.

“Yeah, maybe.” Bucky can’t look Steve in the eye.

To make matters even worse, he had started fantasizing about his best friend. He didn’t understand why girls couldn’t see what he saw: Steve’s beautiful eyes, his lips, his hands and wrists, and that voice that was so unexpectedly deep and surprisingly authoritative. For a while, he figured that was the reason why none of the girls were right for him. For a while, things made sense. He was a queer, of course he wouldn’t fall in love with a girl. But when he finally worked up enough courage to head to one of the queer bars in his neighborhood, nothing really changed. He would end up in an alley with some guy’s mouth on him, or the other way around, but when that guy started looking at Bucky like he hung the moon the next time he saw him, Bucky’s stomach clenched, anxiety rushing through his veins.

He didn’t go out for weeks after that. Steve had been worried sick, asking him what was wrong at least three times a day. A part of him desperately wanted to talk to Steve, but he couldn’t find the words to do it. Despite what the priest and doctors and every disapproving adult in the neighborhood said, Bucky knew that queers were still capable of loving each other. They weren’t perverse, just different, Bucky was convinced of that. He had seen couples at the bars he frequented, looking just the same as couples at the dance halls. If it had ‘simply’ been a matter of being a queer, he might have told Steve, though he would have left out the part about wanting his best friend. But now, he feels sick. On his worst days, he wonders if he’s even really human. After all, most people seem to believe that what sets humans apart from animals is the ability to love. And he can’t feel it, can’t even feel a dumb crush, or butterflies, or whatever else other people feel.

After a few weeks, Steve, in his despair, had threatened to call Bucky’s ma. He had forced himself to go out again, to smile again, all the while pushing all thoughts of being a freak to the back of his mind. It became a safely locked drawer, one that threatened to overflow every time Bucky stuffed another thought in there. He knew Steve was still worried, but at least he wouldn’t call Bucky’s mother anymore.

He keeps going through the motions, until he enlists and he’s shipped out not that long after. The war is both terrifying and exhilarating. He no longer feels any pressure to keep up a façade – it’s not like he could go on dates while on the front lines. Whenever he feels one of the other soldiers checking him out, he jumps on the opportunity of getting fucked against a tree or having a guy on his knees in front of him with no expectations afterwards, not when they are both at risk of getting blown up the next day. It makes him reckless. He can’t find it in him to care about coming back in one piece, not when he can’t envision a future for himself anyway. Steve will find a girl capable of dealing with his savior-complex and have a bunch of kids and a dog and he’ll no longer need Bucky. Any future he thinks of includes Steve right by his side, but he knows that’s not realistic, so he tries to ignore it. Nothing else enters his mind when he thinks of life after the war.

And then his unit is captured. As he is separated from the others and strapped to a table, he thinks, _this is it. I’m done for._ They cut him, probe and prod, and inject him with god knows what. He desperately wants it to end. He has no idea how long he’s been on that table when someone who sounds like Steve but looks like a Greek god comes for him. It’s not until he looks in his rescuer’s eyes and sees the shade of blue that he’d recognize anywhere that he realizes it actually is Steve. He vaguely wonders if his mind is playing tricks on him, but it doesn’t matter. Either Steve is really here and he is saved, or he can escape for a while in this bizarre dream and not think about his burning veins and aching body.

It _was_ real and it’s not until that night, camped out in a forest in his shared tent with Steve that he realizes just how much he’s missed his best friend. He misses sharing a home with someone, having someone to come home to. He misses Steve’s dumb fucking decisions and their subsequent fights and apologies. He misses Steve drawing and Steve’s absolutely dry sense of humor. For the first time in months, the knot in his stomach that he didn’t even realize was there unclenches a little. He can breathe again now that Steve is with him.

That doesn’t mean he’s not about to give Steve hell for signing up to this dumb experiment though.

“What the fuck were you thinking, Steve? You could have died!”

Steve’s nostrils flare. “I’m not as fragile as you seem to think. It went fine.”

“Yes, but you didn’t know that!” Bucky sighs. “Goddammit, Steve. Why you always gotta prove yourself, huh?”

“It’s not about proving myself!” Steve yells. They both knew it’s at least partially a lie. “It’s about doing what’s right, about helping people.”

“And how many people did you help while on tour with the USO girls?” Bucky bites back. It’s a low blow; it’s not Steve’s fault that the army hadn’t even considered using him in the fight.

“Fuck you, Buck,” Steve says, but it lacks its usual venom. He just sounds hurt.

Bucky steps closer to Steve, then hesitates. “Shit, I’m sorry. I’m just worried okay? You know your self-preservation skills are kinda lacking, right?”

That gets a tiny smile out of Steve. “Never noticed.”

“Punk.”

“Jerk,” Steve finishes their ritual.

They didn’t actually solve anything, but at least they’re not angry with each other anymore. Of course, that just means it’s Steve’s turn to worry.

“What did they do to you in there, Buck?” Steve asks cautiously.

“It’s nothing,” Bucky deflects. He doesn’t want to think about it. Truthfully, he has no idea how he’s going to go sleep tonight and he sure as hell doesn’t know how he’s supposed to hide the inevitable nightmares from Steve, but he’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it. For now, he just wants to forget that it happened. Besides, he doesn’t really know what they did to him anyway. He’d been in and out of consciousness for most of it and all he knows was that it had hurt like hell. There isn’t much he or anyone can do about it though, so he doesn’t want to worry Steve.

“Buck,” Steve starts, but Bucky cuts him off.

“I’m fine, Steve. Just drop it, okay?” He doesn’t mean for his voice to sound so pleading.

“Hmmpf,” is the only reply. Steve doesn’t bring it up again.

Steve goes to sleep and Bucky pretends to be asleep, too afraid to let his unconsciousness overtake him. If Steve notices, he doesn’t say anything.

Later, in the bar, when Steve is assembling his team, it never even crosses Bucky’s mind to not follow him. His home is right next to him. He still can’t see a future for himself and his reckless streak reappears with a vengeance when he realizes he no longer has to worry about Steve’s health back in Brooklyn. He has already said yes when Agent Carter walks in and Bucky sees the look on Steve’s face. More importantly, he sees the look on Carter’s face. He knows right then and there that Steve will be alright without him.

\---

The 21st century is loud. As Bucky tries to find himself again, he has trouble finding a quiet moment. The noise in his brain is exacerbated by the noises around him: the cars whirring past, the planes flying overhead, the people speaking louder than he remembers being normal. Maybe he has been living like a ghost for so long that he can’t handle being among the living anymore.

Steve finally tracks him down and though Bucky has been trying to avoid being found, it still feels like coming home. Not all of his memories have returned yet, but enough to know himself and to know Steve.

When Steve asks Bucky to come home to him, the only answer that could possibly pass Bucky’s lips is “yes.”

\---

Five months have passed since then. Steve walked on eggshells around Bucky at first, which, while understandable, drove Bucky crazy. Gradually, they had returned to their usual banter. Steve tells him stories of things they got up to growing up. Sometimes Bucky remembers, and sometimes he has no idea what Steve is talking about, but he enjoys listening to the stories all the same.

With every passing day, he feels more like himself. He remembers silly things about their life before the war and he always tells Steve about them because it makes Steve smile in the most genuine and heartwarming way. The more unpleasant memories he keeps to himself. He talks about his actions as the Winter Soldier with his therapist, but the more mundane bad memories are never spoken of. He remembers now the hollow feeling he’s had since at least 1935, when he realized there was something broken in him. He remembers that churning feeling in his gut whenever someone expected him to be romantic in any way. He remembers the alleyways and the forests in Europe and the squeaking bed in his Brooklyn apartment and how he felt happiest when he knew there were no expectations placed on him to take that person out on a date afterwards.

Steve updates Bucky a bit on major events and developments that he’d missed. Steve explains that it’s no longer illegal for two people of the same gender to be together, that they can even get married now. Red blotches appear on Steve’s skin as he talks about this, which Bucky pointedly ignores. If Steve suspects he’s queer, Bucky isn’t going to confirm that for him. He isn’t ready for the conversation that will lead to.

Life goes on as usual. In some ways, their life in this century is easier without Bucky having to worry about Steve’s health or about making rent or paying for Steve’s medications. It removes a lot of day-to-day stress. Natasha drops by a couple of times a week if she isn’t on a mission. Bucky likes her immediately. She has an air of practicality about her that makes her very approachable. Bucky thinks he understands why she and Steve have become so close. Despite her profession – or maybe because of it – she’s reliable. Sometimes, she comes by when she knows Steve is not home. She talks to him about the Red Room and Bucky feels safe talking to her about his Winter Soldier days without fear of judgment or pity. She understands him in a way that nobody else can, simply because nobody else has been in their shoes.

Despite Steve’s obligations with the Avengers, they have plenty of carefree time to spend together. Whenever Bucky talks about a memory and Steve smiles that genuine smile of his, Bucky feels his stomach tighten. It’s not in that nauseating way that he’s so familiar with. This is nerve-wracking, yet somehow much lighter. It doesn’t make him want to run away; instead, it makes him want to move closer to Steve, even though they are sitting next to each other on a not particularly big couch. In these moments, he feels the air crackling between them. He doesn’t know what to do with these feelings, not just because he has never experienced them before, but also because he knows Steve has never shown any interest in men. The locked drawer in his mind expands again as he shoves these thoughts in there as well.

Some days, Bucky spends hours on end surfing the internet on their shared computer without any specific goal in mind. Once he figures out how to access the browser history, curiosity overwhelms him. He hardly expects to find anything truly interesting in Steve’s browser history, but then one page title catches Bucky’s eye. Something about bisexuality. Bucky has heard the word before; Steve had mentioned it when he talked about same sex couples getting married and he’d had to explain what LGBT stood for. He wonders why Steve looked at the page. Bucky clicks on the link, which leads him to a website where people ask for advice about their sexuality. A lot of the words are unfamiliar, but he keeps on reading anyway. After having scrolled for a good fifteen minutes, he sees a post with a chart delineating various kinds of attraction. He sees the word “aromantic.” He doesn’t quite know what it means, but he can guess. He googles the word and ends up on a site similar to the previous one, except this one is specifically for aromantic people. Some posts describe exactly what he has been feeling for so long. Except, none of this explains why it’s different with Steve, so he reads on, until he finds a post with a bunch of words he’s never heard of and their definitions.

_“Demiromantic: only experiencing romantic attraction after a strong emotional bond has already been formed.”_

It’s not so much that a weight has been lifted off his shoulders because, truth be told, it’s still there. He does breathe easier now, though. There is a name for what he feels, which means it’s common enough that people like him got together and came up with a word.

He keeps on reading, about different sexualities and romantic attractions and gender identities and he feels as if his mind is going to explode with all this information, but in a good way. He learns that there are more than two genders. He learns the word “pansexual” and decides that it suits him better than bisexual, for reasons he’d have a hard time explaining if anyone asked. It just clicks for him.

He’s so engrossed in learning these new words that he doesn’t hear Steve come in. He startles when he hears a voice behind him ask, “Whatcha doing?”

It’s too late to close the laptop screen, and in any case, it would be suspicious as hell if he did. Steve has already seen the screen and color is blotting his cheeks. “Umm…” Bucky says eloquently. “Just looking some stuff up.”

The tips of Steve’s ears are burning, the way they do when he gets embarrassed. It only now dawns on Bucky that Steve might have been looking at that page about bisexuality for himself, not because he suspects Bucky of being queer. Bucky had been so preoccupied by all the new information and his own revelations that he completely forgot about Steve.

“I think we need to talk,” Bucky says. He finally has the vocabulary to enter into this conversation, even if it’s sudden and he feels a lot more unprepared than he’d like to be. But the cards need to be out on the table now.

“Yeah. Yeah, maybe we should,” Steve agrees after a short silence in which he gets even redder. He sits down next to Bucky. “I should’ve told you sooner, I really should have. But at first you were…you weren’t well and I didn’t want you to feel obligated or anything and then I didn’t know how to bring it up anymore so I…”

“Jesus, spit it out, Rogers,” Bucky says, giving him a reassuring smile.

Steve takes a deep breath. “I’ve been in love with you since 1940. Maybe before that, but I’ve known since 1940. I thought I was sick but when the serum didn’t cure me of it, I started to think maybe I wasn’t sick at all? And now, in this century, it’s okay. It’s okay to be bi. I mean, I know it’s still bad, but it’s better, you know?” Steve is rambling, probably waiting for Bucky to cut him off again and put him out of his misery.

“We must be the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet,” Bucky jokes, but it falls flat. He knows Steve suffered over this, and so did he. He starts fidgeting with his hair, as he does when he’s nervous. “Anyway, so yeah, I read about all this maybe an hour ago so I still don’t really know what the fuck I’m doing, but here it goes, I guess.” He takes a breath to steel himself, while Steve looks at him with expectant eyes. He knows Steve just dropped the L word, and Bucky hasn’t said it back, and he doesn’t know if he can, now or ever. All he knows is that Steve makes him feel things he hasn’t ever felt before and that that might make him demiromantic. “I hated going on dates,” he finally says.

Steve’s eyes go wide. “What? You went on dates every other night!”

“Yeah, because I’m a stubborn asshole – I learned from the best,” he says, with a sad smile. “And because I hoped it might change. But the holding hands and the looks they gave me and the expectations they had, it made me nauseous. It wasn’t any different with guys, either.”

Steve goes pale. “Shit, Bucky. Jesus, I’m sorry, I didn’t think – should I go?” Steve asks, already half getting up out of his seat.

“Sit down, you big drama queen. I ain’t done yet.” Steve sits back down, but doesn’t look very reassured. Bucky wishes he could skip ahead, but he can’t, not if he wants Steve to understand. “I liked hooking up with men and women, though. As long as nobody had any other expectations, I felt great. The army was kind of perfect in that way.” His heart is pounding against his chest. He hopes Steve will understand, but he has only just really started to understand himself. “I saw your browser history. I was curious. It didn’t even really occur to me that you might be looking at this stuff for yourself, I figured you just knew that I went to queer bars all the time before the war, or you heard some talk on the front, or something. Anyway, that page led me to another page about aromantics. I didn’t know there were other people like me until an hour ago. But here’s the thing: you make me feel things I’ve never felt before. And I don’t know for sure what that means or what’s happening because, yeah, all this information is new to me, so I don—”

Bucky is abruptly shut up by Steve pulling him in for a hug. “I’m so sorry, Buck. I wish I would’ve known.” He doesn’t say “I wish you would’ve told me,” which Bucky appreciates.  
“And you gotta know, I love you, whether you can return that feeling or not. I’ll love you as a friend, it’s good enough for me,” Steve continues, sounding sincere.

Bucky thinks about it for a minute, about them continuing as friends, about Steve’s smile, and about the way he can never hide when he’s embarrassed or when he’s lying because his skin turns at least 8 different shades of red, and about his mussed hair and sleepy eyes in the morning, and about how he still curls up into a ball when he sleeps, even though he’s huge now and Bucky realizes something. “It’s not good enough for me,” Bucky says, gently cupping one side of Steve’s face. Steve’s eyes fill with hope and adoration and for the first time in his life, he doesn’t mind that look.

“You sure?” Steve asks, ever the gentleman.

Bucky pulls Steve closer by his shirt and by way of answering, kisses his best friend. It’s soft and tentative and new. His heart is still pounding, but for an entirely different reason now. For the first time since 1935, the knot in his stomach has been completely dissolved. Steve’s kisses, so filled with love and complete acceptance of everything that he is, do not fix him, but make Bucky feel like there has never been anything broken about him in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> My [tumblr](http://www.hufflepuffbuckybarnes.tumblr.com/)


End file.
